We are Home

It's funny how miles can carry us away and fling us so far from the lick-down bill envelopes and grocery lists of regular life that we almost forget their very existence.

Until that garage door lifts and the clutter and grit stands piled up around us and we're a little bit bummed to see that it's still there; yet also so very happy, because it means we are home.

We had such a great time in Tennessee. My thoughts carried a twang for a good four days running. I want to be Southern with a visceral fierceness. Or British. Either one.

The goblins peered up at mountains and ate snow cones dipped from a shady pick-up truck equipped with an Igloo cooler full of shaved ice and 6 pump-bottles of syrup in the bed. One "ice cream man" was shirtless. The other had a fu manchu. I wouldn't have believed it, except for the tinny ice cream truck music piped from a speaker in the cab.

I died a thousand deaths because my girl is drawn to plunging drop-offs. She was always hitching a leg overboard to see just a little more. It gave me the vapors.

(I'm real strong y'all.)

And just like that, here we are.

I whined that I didn't want to come back to Drearsville. This rental, it's getting under my skin a bit. From the passenger seat of the van, I pictured it dark and sunless. Tired and old.

You know what? It's plenty sunny in here.

There are groceries in the fridge and clean laundry in the dryer. I busted out the famous veggie pita sandwich for my lunch and it slapped me on the back like the old friend that it is.



So maybe I don't have to choose between vacation happy and real life happy. Maybe they were allies all along. There was never a contest.

Ask me again tomorrow when the temperature dips twenty degrees and the sun hides out in the way-back.

But for today? Home is kinda dreamy.